By LOUIS BERGERON In the first study ever done on the local health effects of the domes of carbon dioxide that develop above cities, Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson found that the domes increase the local death rate. The result provides a scientific basis for regulating CO2 emissions at the local level and points out a significant oversight in the carbon dioxide “cap-and-trade” proposal that was passed by the House of Representatives in June 2009 and is awaiting definitive action by the Senate. Everyone knows that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, is a global problem. Now a Stanford study has shown it is also a local problem, hurting city dwellers’ health much more than rural residents’, because of the carbon dioxide “domes” that develop over urban areas. That finding, said researcher Mark Z. Jacobson, exposes a serious oversight in current cap-and-trade proposals for reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, which make no distinction based on a pollutant’s point of origin. The finding also provides the first scientific basis for controlling local carbon dioxide emissions based on their local health impacts.  “Not all carbon dioxide emissions are equal,” said Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering. “As in real estate, location matters. His results also support the case that California presented to the Environmental Protection Agency in March 2009, asking that the state be allowed to establish its own carbon dioxide emission standards for vehicles. Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford, testified on behalf of California’s waiver application in March 2009. The waiver had previously been denied, but was reconsidered and granted subsequently. The waiver is currently being challenged in court by industry interests seeking to overturn it. Jacobson found that domes of increased carbon dioxide concentrations – discovered to form above cities more than a decade ago – cause local temperature increases that in turn increase the amounts of local air pollutants, raising concentrations of health-damaging ground-level ozone as well as particles in urban air. … The results of Jacobson’s study are presented in a paper published online by Environmental Science and Technology. …

 Urban CO2 domes increase deaths, poke hole in ‘cap-and-trade’ proposal, Stanford researcher says